Classically Trained
by RayWritesThings
Summary: The Dollmaker meets unexpected resistance when enacting his plan to destroy Detective Lance's soul, and Laurel ends up meeting a needed friend. / Eventual Lauriver, Metahuman Laurel Lance, Older Ted Grant, Rated for Language and Some Violence


**Hello! This little idea is the result of a discussion over on the Lauriver discord about different points in the canon Laurel could've/should've gotten her powers. I've always wanted to do one that wasn't contingent on the particle accelerator (and have read some really good ones where that was the case), so this fic was born. Much thanks to Okori again for beta-reading this, and thanks to you all for reading as well. I hope you enjoy!**

**-RayWritesThings**

**Classically Trained**

Laurel had never been more terrified. Not when she'd been attacked by the Triad in her own apartment, not during the staged prison riot at Iron Heights, not when Vanch had taken her hostage to use as bait against the Hood and not even when she'd been trapped under the rubble in the quake. Even though she'd felt for certain she was going to die before Tommy had come to save her.

Any of those instances, she could have died, and died with dignity. This, what the Dollmaker planned to do to her...this was a horror that went beyond death.

"Look at her. She's so lovely," Mathis said as he leaned in close to her face. Laurel's breathing picked up, audible with the tube stuck down her throat. God, she could feel his breath and it was sickening. "Maybe a little too much melanin in the skin, but...it's the imperfections that make art sublime."

She couldn't really process that backhanded compliment, not over her father's pleading and the roar in her own ears. This was it. She was dying. No one was saving her this time. Not Tommy, not her father, not the Hood and not even Oliver and his military bodyguard. She'd lost or pushed people away too many times, and a maniac was going to kill her to destroy her father.

"She's your world, she's your very _soul,_" Mathis continued to wax poetic. Her father was shouting at him now. Laurel wanted to join him.

"I will kill you, you son of a bitch!"

She couldn't do this to him. She couldn't just die like this! Her chest hurt from the rapid heaves of breath she was taking and the hammering of her heart.

The white liquid started to filter down from Mathis' contraption and up the tube. She was going to choke, and it would all be over for her in a few moments. Her whole life, reduced to a glassy-eyed doll for other people to look at and pity.

"Laurel, sweetheart...close your eyes," her father begged, tears leaking from his own.

Laurel's eyes did squeeze shut, but she wasn't ready to go out quietly. She was tired of being helpless, tired of just existing as an object for other people to batter and use to their own ends, tired of bottling it all up and burying the pain and the anger deep inside.

So she screamed. Only it wasn't just a scream.

The tube and the straps holding it to her face ripped away from her, hitting the opposite wall. Glass shattered on the table with his contraption and from the few lightbulbs above, raining down into her hair and stinging her cheek with tiny cuts.

Laurel coughed at the feel of the tube leaving her throat, and that was what ended it. Whatever it had been. She gasped for breath, looking around in wide-eyed shock. Nothing was like it had been.

Her father had slid to the ground, still strapped into place with his arms behind his back while his head hung down. She could make out the sound of him groaning.

Just to her left, Mathis was also sprawled. Red was leaking from his one ear, and it took Laurel a moment to register that meant blood.

Movement to her right near the table caused her to start; the Hood had just stood up. She didn't even know when he'd gotten there, but he must have been using the table for cover.

Laurel coughed again. "What...what just happened?"

He stared at her, she thought. In the dim light left by Mathis's Bunsen burner, his eyes were glinting. After a long pause, he finally answered, _"I was going to ask you."_

What?

"Laurel," her father stirred, struggling to rise back onto his feet. "Honey, are you okay?"

"I- I'm fine. I'm alive." She was shaking, she realized, uncontrollably. No matter what had happened, she was okay. She wasn't going to die.

The Hood went to her father and undid his bindings. The vigilante hung back as he rushed forward to her, taking the straps off her arms.

"I just don't understand. I mean, how did you do it?" Her dad asked.

"Do what?"

"You didn't- you didn't see? Laurel, you- your voice or something, I don't know. It nearly knocked me over if I hadn't been tied to the pole!"

"Dad, that doesn't make any sense," she said. Her eyes searched out the Hood again, but this time he looked away. Then he started forward.

"_Mathis!"_

The serial killer was no longer sprawled on the ground but was crawling on hands and knees towards the nearest exit.

"Damnit, he's getting away!" Her father yelled, fumbling for some kind of weapon.

"_No, he isn't,"_ a different distorted voice spoke. Feminine. The blonde woman from the other night jumped down from the rafters in front of Mathis, the staff she carried going under his chin. His neck snapped before any of them could so much as cry out.

Only when Laurel did, she saw it.

The air in front of her seemed to pulse with waves of volume, not far enough to reach the other woman, though her head turned sharply in Laurel's direction with pure shock etched into the features she could make out. It mirrored Laurel's own.

She stumbled back and nearly tripped over her own feet, the sound cutting off as she gasped. A hand flew over her mouth. "I don't- I don't know how that—" she mumbled behind it.

They were all just staring at her, wary, none of them approaching. Like she was diseased. She'd gotten herself out of danger, and somehow it was so much worse than being rescued.

Laurel turned and ran.

"Laurel!"

She didn't turn back at her father's shout and just kept going. When her feet started to hurt, she tore off the stupid heels she was wearing and carried them.

Everything was just so screwed up. The Hood has come to save her and her father, even after she had joined the task force hunting him down. He was a good person, or trying to be. What had happened last spring hadn't been his fault, easier as it had been to just blame him. No, what had happened to Tommy had been _her_ fault, just like whatever had just happened back at the Dollmaker's hideout was her fault. What was so wrong with her?

Laurel sagged against a wall, breathing hard and too tired to go on any further. She had no idea where she was, but it looked like some forgotten corner of the Glades.

"Hey, you alright?"

She looked up. There was an older man across the alley standing at the back door of a building he looked to just be locking up.

Laurel shook her head, not sure if she trusted herself to speak. That weird scream could come back any moment for all she knew.

"Someone chasing you? Running away from a bad boyfriend? Need the police?" He checked, getting more shakes of the head from her. "Any reason you don't want to talk to me? If it's Stranger Danger, the name's Ted Grant."

Laurel swallowed. "I'm not scared of you." Even if the guy looked ripped enough to be a member of the Queen family's security detail, he held himself in a way that made him seem much more open. "I'm scared of me."

He looked her over, and even though she could see him assessing her there wasn't any kind of predatory edge to it. He turned and inserted his key back into the lock, opening the door again.

"Look, best to get this off the street. Especially these days." She blinked and had to move fast to catch the keys when he flung them at her face after. "So you know you're not trapped."

"Right." Laurel walked up to the door.

"Not bad reflexes, by the way," he remarked.

"Thanks?"

When he turned the lights on, she got a better idea of why he might have commented on it. Laurel looked around the gym floor, the bags hanging at various intervals and the ring standing in the middle.

"So, what do I call you? You can pick a name," he offered.

"Uh, Dinah," said Laurel, cringing immediately afterward. Brilliant idea, pick her own name! Even if it wasn't the name people commonly attached to her. But she was still too rattled to really concentrate. She should've gone with Sara, she realized, if it had to be a name she was familiar with.

Ted grinned. "Old-fashioned. I like it. Okay, Dinah, the first thing you gotta learn is, you can't run from yourself. No one can. So what are you really running from?"

"I don't know," she answered, hugging her arms to herself. "It just happened."

"What did?"

"Trust me, you don't want to find out."

If anything, his grin got wider. "Try me."

Something about his brazen confidence was soothing at the same time it was aggravating. She knew he probably thought she was just some helpless, battered woman. Part of her wanted to prove him wrong.

Part of her wanted to know she wasn't just going crazy.

Laurel turned away from him, trying her best to draw on some of that jumbled panic, fear and adrenaline still coursing through her system. There was a burn at the back of her throat, not painful but present, and somehow she just knew. She opened her mouth and screamed.

The posters on the far wall went flying and the heavy bags hanging at that end of the gym swung as if caught in a storm. Nothing shattered, thankfully.

"Do you see why I'm scared now?" She asked, looking over her shoulder at him.

"I'll be damned, Dinah." He was staring at her now, too, but though the shock was there it wasn't tinged with fear. Not like with her father and the vigilantes. If anything, he looked awed. "What are you gonna do with that?"

—-

He waited too long.

By the time Oliver reacted, Laurel was out the door and far down the street. He hurried into the night, but with no way of knowing which direction she'd fled in, he was hopeless to pursue her.

"Where did she go?" Lance asked, gasping for breath in the doorway. "What just happened?"

Oliver remained silent. In all his years away and everything he had seen, nothing like that had ever been among it.

"It was Mathis. He- he must've done something to her while I was out," Lance was deciding for himself now. "And we can't ask him, damnit!"

The former detective whirled back around, but the warehouse was empty aside from the Dollmaker's broken body. The woman in the black mask had taken her leave as well.

"_My associate and I will track you daughter,"_ Oliver promised. Then he fired a grapple arrow to ascend to the roof of the building next door. He hurried into the night, eyes scanning the streets below on his way to the base. He found nothing.

Oliver's mind was still half on thinking of places Laurel might have run to — her apartment? Her father's? A police station? — when he entered the base to find Felicity and John waiting for him.

"So, we heard a lot on the comms," Felicity began. "Could you elaborate on what it all meant?"

"I got there, and Mathis was getting ready to- to turn Laurel into a doll," Oliver said, covering his wavering voice with a cough. "Something happened before I could intervene."

"Was it our mysterious blonde? Thought we heard something like that sonic device she had on her the other night," Digg said.

"She was there, but no. It wasn't her. It was Laurel. She…" He didn't even know how to describe it. "She screamed and it, it just was a _force, _it came from her—"

"What do you mean?" Felicity was wearing a quizzical half-smile, like he was talking nonsense. He felt like he was talking nonsense.

"I mean it forced the tube out of her throat and Mathis to the ground. His ears were bleeding."

"Laurel did that with a scream?" John crossed his arms, dubious. "Oliver, that's impossible."

"It's not impossible," Oliver disputed. "I saw things. On the island. Not this, but...people are capable of more than we might think possible."

John frowned. "How come you never mentioned that before?"

"Because it never meant good things," he told them.

"So, what, you're saying Laurel is bad now?" Asked Felicity.

"No," Oliver answered immediately. He could never think that. It just didn't make sense. It must have been Mathis' doing, like Lance had said. Unless…

John had pointed out the similarity between the sound that had come from Laurel and the device the unknown woman carried. Why had she been there at all? Why had she been near Laurel's office at all?

Now Laurel was out there, alone and terrified. He had to find her before she was hurt. Or worse, hurt someone by mistake.

And he had to find her before anyone else did.

—-

Ted had seen a few things as protector of the streets in his day, but this about took the cake. A woman with a scream to bring the house down. He couldn't make this stuff up if he tried.

"What do you mean 'what am I going to do with it'?" She asked, scoffing. "I don't even know how I got it, and I don't want it."

"Don't be so hasty. Look, I can see the bruises forming there on your wrists. Something happened to you, didn't it? Or was going to." She looked down now, ashamed. Ted worked to gentle his tone. "What got you out of it?"

Her chin lifted slightly, trembling. "Don't you think I'm some kind of freak?"

He shook his head. "Freak's not in my vocabulary." There was something curious about her, though. Those fancy clothes and yet she looked like she'd been put through the mill the same as any of them in the Glades. And not just from whatever had nearly happened tonight.

"What I see is someone who was in a tight spot and figured her own way out of it. A way that might come in handy again. You never know."

"Why do you care?" She was incredibly suspicious for someone her age. He could see the way she kept tensing at each show of goodwill. Who had hurt this girl so badly?

He shrugged. "I get a lot of people in here who feel lost, who need to work something out. Helping them is how I keep giving back to my city."

"You think you can help me?"

"Depends. Are you looking for help?"

She looked ready to snap at him, maybe with that scream of hers, too. But then her shoulders drooped, and her mouth turned down in a frown so fundamentally unhappy. "I don't know what I'm looking for. I just know I can't- I can't go back right now. There's people who know, and they'll be looking for me, and I just _cannot_ deal with that right now."

He nodded to himself. The truth was, he wasn't comfortable sending her back out there to walk home, and none of the cabs drove around this area of the city at this time of night anymore. He walked over to the supply closet and picked out a hoodie and pair of sweatpants he thought would be in her size well enough. "You'll want some of these. You alright with black?"

"Black's fine. I- you don't have to help me."

"Nobody has to help anyone, Dinah. But that's kind of the point. I keep a couple cots in the back for if people get carried away and knock each other out. Or themselves, sometimes. You can use one of those. Take a few days. Then tell me what you're thinking."

He set the clothes on a bench and started to head back to his office.

"Ted?"

He looked back around in time to catch the keys she'd flung back at him. Ted smirked. "Yeah?"

The closest thing to a smile he'd seen her wear all night rose on her lips. "Thank you."

"Not a problem. Goodnight, Dinah."

—-

Quentin was ready to rip out his hair. He'd gone back to the precinct, checked Laurel's apartment and her office. Nothing, except her belongings some of the other beat cops had found along with his in the parking lot when Dollmaker had attacked them. Her phone was among them. He had no way of reaching her.

He'd been so stupid! Laurel was going through enough on top of Mathis' sick attempt at revenge. She'd needed support, whatever the hell had happened to her. And he'd been too stunned to give it.

The first thing he did the next morning was to call the DA's office. "Yeah, this is Officer Lance. I'm looking for my daughter."

"I'm sorry, officer, Laurel called in this morning to say she was taking the week off. She cited personal reasons? In light of the attack on you both last night, we approved the absence."

"Laurel called?"

"Yes, I spoke to her myself."

She had access to a phone, then. That was something. Something good? He didn't know. But she was out there, alive. That alone brought him relief.

"Alright, listen, if she calls back could you please tell her to call me? Thank you."

He would keep looking in the meantime. If Laurel was hiding because she was scared or thought she'd done something wrong, he was going to be the first person to tell her otherwise. Maybe Mathis should've gone to jail again, but he certainly wasn't mourning the creep after what he'd tried to do. And whatever that scream had been, they'd figure it out. They always had.

He just needed some help finding her was all. So he ducked out of the precinct and put in a call to Smoak.

"_Officer Lance. Did you hear from your daughter?"_

"No, and I'm guessing you haven't either. Okay, I found out she called into her office to take off work for the week. They approved it, considering the abduction last night. But that means she's somewhere with a phone. Can you do anything with that?"

"_Not unless I had the number. I'm sorry, Officer Lance."_

He hung his head. He should've been expecting that. "No, that's alright. Was worth a shot."

"_Well, at least we know Laurel is alive? Sorry, that came out worse than in my head."_

"It's fine. Listen, I'm gonna do a sweep around the warehouse, so I'll let you go."

"_Okay, but— Officer Lance?"_

"Yeah?" He asked, bringing the phone back up to his ear.

Smoak hesitated. _"We're looking at a possible connection to the masked woman who showed up last night. If you see her, let us know right away."_

That was something. He hadn't even put much thought into the woman who had killed Mathis. What was her deal? "Right, yeah. I'll let you know."

He hung up and got into his squad car, driving over to the Glades. He drove around the streets surrounding the warehouse for hours, but didn't find a thing.

—-

Laurel rubbed at her temples with a groan. It was five o'clock somewhere, and she was stone-cold sober. That was definitely a problem.

In the cold light of day, she wasn't really sure what she was doing here. Here being the Wildcat Gym, as she'd realized upon looking at the logo on both the hoodie and sweatpants she was borrowing for the moment. The name seemed familiar to her, but she couldn't remember why. She'd used the landline phone in Ted's office to place a call into her work, knowing she did not have the energy nor the strength to show her face in there for a while.

Last year at CNRI, she would've hated taking even a day off. But the DA's office was not what she'd hoped it might be. Kate still disliked her, Adam was...decidedly not the most professional. She rarely got to see or speak to the victims or families of the criminals they were putting away. It was all so impersonal. Lonely, like she was now.

The door to Ted's office opened, and he entered with a sandwich in a takeout bag. "Thought you might need something to eat."

"More like something to drink," she grumbled, but took the food anyway. God, she was going to be in so much debt to this man when all was said and done.

When she glanced up, he was frowning at her. "You drink a lot, Dinah?"

"Please don't start. Not you too," she replied, starting to stand up. This had been a stupid idea and she needed to just suck it up and go back to work. It was weird being called by her first name all the time, anyway. She kept looking over her shoulder expecting her mother to be there when she knew she shouldn't expect that ever.

"Look, I'm not judging. I know how it is. Got an injury a while back that ended my fighting career." He gestured to the sidewall, where for the first time Laurel noticed a number of framed articles and trophies. _Starling's southpaw wins heavyweight title,_ one headline proclaimed. Another framed article mentioned a family being rescued from a fire by an anonymous stranger.

She didn't have the time to dwell on it, for Ted spoke again. "I took it hard, at first. Felt like I couldn't do anything for anybody, much less myself."

"So you drank?"

"So I drank. It only dulled the pain. It didn't make it go away."

Laurel looked down at the ground, her eyes squeezed shut. "Then what does?"

"Finding a way to keep doing what makes you feel alive. Come on, eat and then I want you to join me in the ring."

"I don't know how to box."

"Yeah, that's why I teach lessons, you know?" He smirked. "Eat first."

She did, the headache lessening somewhat. She found a water fountain against one wall of the gym and that helped a little too. Laurel walked around various students at the bags or doing stretches, most of them male, and found Ted waiting in the ring. He watched her struggle to climb into it herself.

"Mitts," he said once she was standing, passing her a set. She watched him put on his own and then mimicked him. "You do much fighting?"

"I took self-defense classes growing up," she revealed. "And I've needed them a few times recently."

"Alright, that's not a bad start. But what we're doing here isn't some quick takedown maneuver. This is a fight. Let's see what you got." And then he took the first swing.

Laurel ducked, stumbling back a bit, then ducked again. He held back after that, watching her. She wasn't about to let him keep just swinging at her, so she lunged forward. He dodged easily, bumping at her side with his left mitt. It wasn't hard, but it still winded her a bit.

"Don't overreach. Keep your fists up and your sides guarded," he coached. Laurel tried to swallow around the mouth guard and did as instructed. By the time he was talking her through the combinations he'd been using, she abruptly realized her headache had dissipated on its own.

She felt way better, actually. Invigorated. She hadn't actually known she could still feel alive after everything.

Ted was going easy on her, she could tell. It made her want to try all the harder. Even if she barely knew what she was doing. All she knew was it felt right. She felt wholly in control of her body and mind for the first time in months. Maybe years.

He called a stop after a few minutes when she was panting for breath, grinning broadly. He did that a lot. "Not bad, not bad. We can work on your form. Why don't I show you the bags, and you can take however much time on each of them to get a feel for it?"

Laurel nodded, and this time he held the ropes up for her to help her out of the ring. They went to one of the speed bags first, as she learned it was called.

Ted was a really good teacher, she had to give him that. A day ago she would have scoffed at the idea of spending hours at a gym.

The one thing he couldn't fix was that she was _so_ not wearing the right bra for this. But that was a problem she could handle herself.

—-

Sara knew it was risking a lot for her to be seen out in the day, but that was something that couldn't be helped. After Laurel had run from the warehouse, she'd assumed her father or Oliver would catch up to her and calm her down. But it had been three days, and her sister had yet to return to her apartment or her daily routine. So now she was searching.

After she'd arrived in Starling and ensured her family had made it through the Undertaking, she had found it hard to leave. Now she was glad she hadn't. Apart from the serial killer who had abducted them, something was wrong with Laurel.

She'd heard the first scream up in the rafters and nearly panicked, thinking one of the League had finally arrived and was trying to draw her out with more of the sonic bombs she had borrowed from their arsenal. But then she'd seen the second scream for herself coming from her own sister's mouth.

She'd seen things that were hard to believe in her time away and never thought they might come to her home. But someone had done something to her sister, and for that they were going to pay. If it had been the man she'd killed the other night, he already had.

No woman, _especially_ one of her own family, was going to suffer as the result of some man's experiment. Never again.

She had Sin looking on the streets while she scoured from the rooftops. So far there was no sign of Laurel. No news was good news, maybe, but she wouldn't trust that her sister was safe until the evidence was before her eyes.

But a flash of red below her caught her eye for the moment. The boy from the other day that Oliver had sent running after her. He was hiding in the shadow of one of the buildings below her. Sara shook her head. Then she leapt to the next rooftop.

The chase continued for several minutes. Whatever she did, she couldn't seem to shake him. He knew these streets better than her, she was forced to acknowledge. He'd probably grown up on them.

"Fine," she muttered under her breath, taking a fire escape down into the alley he was watching her from now. Enabling her voice modulator, she thrust her staff out in front of her. _"What does the Arrow want now?"_

The boy watched her, keeping a good bit of distance between them. "He wants to know what you've done to a woman."

Sara reared back. _"What _I've_ done?"_ The nerve Oliver had asking her that! Even if he didn't know who she was.

"Your sonic stuff," the boy in the red hoodie added. "He thinks there's some kind of connection?" She could see some frustration warring on his features; obviously, Oliver hadn't told him all the details and he wanted to know more.

But Sara had to pause as the question hit her. That scream _had_ been like her devices, only more powerful. Was this the League? Were they punishing her for leaving by turning her sister into some kind of human weapon?

"_If there's a connection, it's not my doing."_ But it could be her fault. _"I'm trying to find her the same as he is. And he can look at my record to know I don't hurt other women."_

Sara jumped onto the lid of a closed dumpster, grabbed the ladder of the fire escape and ascended back to the rooftops.

If the League was here, why hadn't they reached out to her first? She was sure they would soon, in order to show off what they'd done. She needed to find Laurel before any more harm came to her.

Her sister was never going to forgive her for this.

—-

Oliver paced behind her chair, which Felicity found nearly as distracting as his workouts. It had none of the side benefits, though.

"Do you think we can trust her at her word?" John asked.

"I don't trust anyone at their word," was Oliver's reply, and Felicity nearly rolled her eyes. That explained a lot about his behavior, actually. "We can't know anything for sure until Laurel is found."

"Where could she be hiding out for this long, though, Oliver? We ran surveillance on Joanna de la Vega the last two nights and it turned up nothing. Lance has had no luck."

"There's something we're missing," Oliver said, not for the first time. Felicity largely tuned them both out, as she was in the middle of some very tricky hacking. Seriously, who knew a laboratory would have more advanced cybersecurity than the FBI!

"I have an idea!" She announced loudly, turning back around in her chair just in time to find Oliver and John glowering at each other. "If anyone would like to hear it."

They both cooled off and looked to her. "Go ahead, Felicity," said John.

"Well, the only thing we know is that somehow Laurel is able to scream really loud. Like, inhumanly loud. So, I have borrowed some satellites from STAR Laboratories to monitor the city for any high frequencies. If we can catch her using the scream-thing, we'll know her location."

"Or that other woman if she uses one of those bombs," John pointed out.

"Either helps us," said Oliver. "Good work." Felicity did her best not to preen at the praise. He turned and left to change right after, then departed the base to start searching manually as he had been the last several nights. Felicity hoped Laurel showed herself soon, so that Oliver might start to focus on something other than finding his ex-girlfriend.

A beep on the computer was the answer to her hopes, and Felicity hurriedly reached for the comms. "Oliver! We have something on the corner of Farina and 7th, in the Glades." Her fingers flew across the keys for a few seconds. "The only thing of note there is a gym, and it should be closed at this time of night."

"_Got it."_

Felicity turned to look back at John. "So, think it's her?"

"I hope so. Whatever happened the other night with Dollmaker, we need answers."

—-

It had taken some convincing, but Ted had gotten Dinah to join him on the roof of the gym. "Do you have a secret boxing ring up here?" She asked as they walked through the access door.

"No. But I figured this is as good a place as any for you to practice your other new skill."

She tensed. "Ted, I don't know."

"Come on, Dinah. You've made a lot of progress already, and I don't want to see you toss that aside because of something you're scared of." He really was impressed with her progress. She had a strength those skinny arms belied, even if they were working on that. Part of him wondered if there was more to his new student than her souped-up vocal chords.

"I don't even know if I could do it again. It hasn't happened since that night."

"Because you're holding back. Look, do you need to get back into some kind of zone? We can throw a few punches, see if that works." He put up his guard and was proud to see she immediately did likewise. She wasn't trusting him not to throw the first punch then. Stances ready, they circled each other, in tight to avoid any kind of accidents — it was a big roof, but still, best not to be stupid about it. She threw a jab that he blocked, then met with his own which she ducked under. There was a fire in her eyes that hadn't been there the night they met, and this was the kind of thing that kept Ted going. Seeing others realize their gifts, their potential—

Someone landed on the roof in a roll, coming up onto her feet and charging straight at him. Ted only just brought up his arm to block a vicious swing of a metal staff, but it connected painfully all the same. Her next swipe took him off his feet.

"Ted!"

"Get downstairs!" He shouted to Dinah. If some crazy mask wanted to come after him, he wasn't getting her mixed up in it. Ted grabbed onto the staff as it came down again and yanked it to the side, sending his attacker off balance. He followed it with a kick to her chest before scrambling back to his feet. She hadn't even fallen.

"_You're going to regret holding a woman hostage,"_ she said.

"Hostage? Hold on, here."

But she didn't hold on. She came at him again and again, and Ted was nearing the edge of the roof. She had a killer's intent, he realized, and that intent was laser-focused on him.

"Leave him _alone!_" Dinah shouted, and that high-pitched scream followed. The woman in the mask went flying and skidding across the roof's surface, but Ted was knocked back.

"Whoa!" He flailed and caught the roof's edge with his left hand, the strain of gravity on his own weight making him grit his teeth.

"Ted!" Dinah ran to him, reaching for his right to help pull him up which he gladly accepted. "God, I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"

The whoosh of something and the chink of metal and stone was the only warning they both got before a figure in dark green and a hood — _the_ Hood — swooped in on a freaking zip line. He caught Dinah around the waist and pulled her away. Ted only barely leveraged both arms onto the roof and kicked with his legs to pull himself back up the rest of the way.

"Hey!" Even if this new vigilante had changed his mind about killing, he sure as hell didn't trust the guy with his student!

"Let me go, you've got it all wrong!" Dinah was yelling at the same time, pushing against the archer's chest. Then her eyes widened. "Ted, look out!"

Blondie in the mask was stirring, only he realized her wig had been knocked off her head. She rose to her feet gingerly, shaking her head as if to clear the ringing that had to be in her ears.

Two voices cried out in shock in the same moment, one modulated and one not. But they both said the same thing: _"Sara?"_

Blondie winced. Ted looked between her and the other pair, who had both turned sharply to stare at each other in an almost comical way.

"Wait, how do _you_ know — _Ollie?_" Dinah exclaimed.

The Hood or Arrow or whatever the hell he wanted to be called released her, taking a large step back and ducking his head like a boy who'd been caught stealing cookies and hoping nobody had noticed.

"Oh my God." Dinah pressed the heels of her hands to her temples. "_What_ is going on?"

The windows rattled slightly. She shut her mouth and glared around at both vigilantes instead.

Ted blew out a breath. This was going to be a much longer night than he'd anticipated.

—-

Laurel was going crazy. Had to be. That, or she had actually died that night by Dollmaker's hand and the afterlife was weirder than any of the holy books claimed. But regardless, nothing seemed to be changing anytime soon and she had no idea where to start.

"You—" she looked at Oliver. Then she whirled to face her sister. "And you- you're alive."

Sara was staring at her toes. "I am, yeah."

"How long have you been back?"

"A few," Sara started, then cleared her throat as her voice had gone very quiet. "A few months. I heard about the earthquake and I- I had to see you all were okay."

Laurel absorbed that for a moment. "And before that? Why haven't you come home? Why haven't you told mom or dad or _me_ you're alive?"

"Sisters? Geez," Ted muttered from a few feet behind her.

"Because I couldn't," Sara answered. She took a step forward. "Laurel, I — the people I've been with, what I've done for them...I'm not the sister you remember. And I can't come home. It would put you all in danger."

There was so much she was feeling right now. Anger, joy, confusion, grief, hurt that the grief had been unnecessary. But no matter what Sara said, she had come back for them. She was her sister, and she was alive, and she'd come here to try and _save_ her from Ted. Hilarious as that idea was. Laurel took the remaining steps, closing the gap that was between them.

"Sara, if you were in trouble, you should have come to us."

"You don't understand," Sara said, shaking her head.

"I don't have to. You're my sister." And she pulled her sister into a hug.

"Laurel…" Sara's arms hung at her sides before suddenly they wrapped around her, as if she'd just remembered the action.

Laurel wasn't sure deep down if she was totally over everything that had happened those six years ago. For one thing, she'd yet to hear an apology. But she'd forgiven Oliver. She couldn't keep holding that grudge against her own sister. And sometimes, the only thing to do was to help, like Ted had said. Barely a week, and she was so much the better for it. If Sara could have the same—

A thought came to her, and she let her sister go before turning back to face Oliver. "Did you know?"

"No," Oliver and Sara said at the same time.

"Actually, he thought I'd done this to you," Sara added, sounding insulted.

Oliver grit his teeth. "I didn't know you were her sister. I was working with the information I had at the time."

"And that information led you both to decide Ted had _kidnapped_ me?" Her teacher was smirking now, clearly taking his amusement from the drama playing out. Well, she did owe him.

"No one had heard from you," Oliver said, an accusatory note to his tone that she might have yelled at except that she could see the hurt in his eyes.

"Did it occur to you maybe I needed some space? Some time to figure this out?" She asked in a measured voice instead, gesturing at her throat. "How was I supposed to reach out to either of you when I didn't _know_ you?"

Sara and Oliver both looked down, ashamed.

"I know I should have called dad at least," she admitted. "I just knew if I talked to him, he'd insist on coming to get me and I- I wasn't ready to face that. I still don't know what to do about this."

"You don't know how it happened?" Sara asked.

Laurel shook her head. "I was terrified. He was going to kill me and I just- I didn't want to die. I don't know if that was it. I was just so tired of feeling helpless and waiting to die." Her shoulders sagged as a weight seemed to lift off her, admitting that. "After Tommy — I didn't think anyone cared enough to save me, and I didn't want them to. It was my fault."

"No, it wasn't."

"Well it wasn't yours," Laurel snapped before Oliver could continue that train of thought. "You were the only one trying to put a stop to the quake, and I blamed you for it when I never should've."

"Maybe the blame is with the man who started the earthquake," Ted interjected. "Malcolm Merlyn. That's not an easy answer when he's too dead to care, but it's the facts."

Laurel looked down, then met Oliver's eyes. He nodded, something in his gaze telling her that the mistakes she'd made with the anti-vigilante task force were forgiven.

"You two gonna kiss and make up already?" Sara asked.

"Sara!"

"What? He swings into save you like Robin Hood and you're gonna act like nothing's going on?" She shook her head. "It's you two, always and forever."

Laurel's mouth hung open, looking between her sister and Oliver. "I...am not ready for that conversation."

"That's fine," Oliver said, and she thought there was some red under the greasepaint she could make out smeared over his face. He then turned more serious as he looked to Ted. "We do need to talk about what you know."

"Hey, you came onto my roof. I didn't ask for this," said Ted. "But if you're worried, no, I'm not running to the cops once you leave. It'd make me a hell of a hypocrite for one thing."

"Wildcat," Laurel breathed in realization. "I remember — one of my clients mentioned you the first year I started at CNRI!"

Ted shrugged, the closest to bashful that she'd seen him.

"He was a local vigilante in the Glades a few years ago," Laurel explained to both Oliver and Sara, who seemed to relax upon hearing that statement.

"Yeah, so your secret's safe with me. Anyway, a friend of Dinah's is a friend of mine. Or Laurel's, I suppose, since that's your real name," he added to her.

She smiled sheepishly. "They both are, actually. Dinah Laurel Lance."

Ted smiled back. "Good to meet you properly, then."

"Yeah, and I guess this is goodbye. I should really get back home. I need to stop running from myself."

"You're not the only one," Sara said. She looked back to her sister in confusion. "I've been staying in one place for too long. The people I left...they'll come here to try and get me back. And they'll use you and dad if they can."

"Sara, we can help you."

Sara shook her head. "I couldn't keep living if one of you were hurt or, or killed because of me. I have to do this, Laurel. I couldn't handle it when I thought they'd already done something to you, your voice or...whatever caused that scream, I'm hoping you can use it to keep yourself and dad safe. At least until I can make my way back here."

Laurel couldn't believe she was expected to give up her sister the minute she'd learned she was still alive. It wasn't fair. Impulsively, she hugged her again. "I love you."

"I love you, too," Sara said, her voice wavering. "Always and forever." When they stepped back, she looked to Oliver. "I'm trusting you to keep them safe, too."

Oliver nodded. "Always. I...if there's anything I can do."

Her sister shook her head. "Not this time, Ollie." She took Laurel's hand and squeezed it tight, then let go. Taking it at a run, she leapt from one roof to the next, eventually disappearing from sight.

Laurel sniffed, trying to hold back tears at her sister's departure. A hand rested on her shoulder, and she looked back up at Oliver, who had crossed the roof to stand with her. "I can get you home," he said quietly.

"Thank you. Really, thank you." She turned and slipped her arms around him, seeming to surprise him nearly as much as Sara had been with the hug. Laurel had to admit, it was strange knowing she was even hugging their city's vigilante. But he wasn't just that. He was so much more. "I understand better now, why you had to go."

He drew in a breath, then put his own arms around her. "I wish I hadn't."

Laurel stepped back and offered him a shaky smile. Maybe they couldn't go back. But in time, they might just be able to go forward. "Give me a minute, then I'll be ready."

She walked over to Ted. "So, thanks again."

"Don't mention it. Those clothes you showed up in are still downstairs, you know."

She made a face. "Burn them." There was no way she could see herself wearing them again without thinking of the Dollmaker at his hot breath on her neck...it was better to just leave that all behind.

"This doesn't have to be goodbye, you know. You've only just started your lessons."

She found herself smiling. "I'll pay you for the rest."

"It's a deal." He turned and headed for the access door. "See you around, Dinah."

She looked at him, an eyebrow raised.

"Hey, I think it fits."

Laurel shook her head. "If you say so."

He headed downstairs and she walked back to Oliver's side. "Lessons?" He asked.

"Yes. Like Sara said, I have to protect my family. And my loved ones."

"Right," he agreed, looking confused.

Laurel sighed and nudged him. "That includes you, Ollie."

"Oh." His eyes were wide, and she bit her lip to stop a giggle. "I'll get you home then."

She stepped into his hold as he fired off another grapple arrow, jumping with him to let it carry them across the city.

Her life was destined never to go the way she ever planned. But as long as she kept getting up to fight another day, Laurel was determined to let nothing keep her down again.

—-

As he recruited more and more of the brightest minds this century had to offer to the labs, it became harder for Eobard to slip away and conduct his daily ritual. But he always managed to do so. He was meticulous about it; the scientific method only worked if it was adhered to, after all. And his plan was grounded in science, not impulses of anger like his last plan had been. That was what had doomed him to be stuck here, after all.

This particular day, he was anxious to reach the Time Vault in order to better organize his thoughts, cast into turmoil by a piece of news out of Starling City. Professor Eobard Thawne cared little for Starling City news, but Dr. Harrison Wells hailed from Starling and as such received a copy of the _Starling Gazette_ every morning. Eobard usually only bothered to skim the contents once a week or so to keep appearances that he was informed about the meaningless day-to-day of the 2010s, but an article from earlier in the week had caught his eye.

A serial killer had been murdered by a vigilante after abducting Dinah Laurel Lance and her father. The autopsy noted a broken neck as the ultimate cause of death, but reporters also noted Barton Mathis' eardrums had been ruptured. There was no stated cause and, most crucially, no statement on the record from Dinah Laurel Lance.

"Good morning, Dr. Wells," Gideon greeted him once he entered the Time Vault.

"It's an interesting one, Gideon. Daily Log, just under fifty days before the particle accelerator is set to erupt and my experiment truly begins at last," Eobard said, confident Gideon was getting it all down. "There has been a complication. An early sighting of one of the Justice League: Black Canary."

Not the prototype of her sister, either. That had no consequence; Rip Hunter would remove her from the timeline soon enough. But bleeding ears meant the Black Canary herself, and the presence of her civilian identity only confirmed it.

He had further evidence. Gideon had flagged a security breach the previous night at their location in Starling. Someone had remotely accessed their satellite information to do a localized search encompassing the city limits.

And that someone hadn't been hacking his labs' data for just any frequency information. Someone had hacked it specifically to find the _Canary's_ frequency. A frequency she shouldn't be able to achieve yet.

Or should she? The little he had read about other heroes besides the Flash from his time had never definitively stated what caused Black Canary's sonic capabilities. He had assumed like most academics that she was a metahuman like all the rest, created in the particle accelerator explosion. But assumptions truly had no place in academics.

Was she something else? A genetic mutation, perhaps, triggered in the event of extreme stress? Or was this perhaps an anomaly, a time aberration the likes of which he had been dreading?

Eobard had kept a close watch on the timeline since the murders he had committed at the turn of this century. He'd done everything he possibly could to make sure events aligned — but then, they couldn't align completely, could they? These changes he had made could not be stopped from rippling outward, and he was aware already of some of the effects both large and small. So far, the future had not changed too much; Crisis was still waiting for the heroes and the future waited for him. He was unstoppable, his own aberration.

Perhaps the universe had decided an equal and opposite reaction was required. Black Canary's early presence meant an established hero for Barry Allen to look to, and Canary was notorious for having a strict moral code. If Barry became too close to her and Green Arrow, he might not be as malleable as Eobard hoped. He might even become the Flash he hated once again.

But then, that could be a gift in and of itself. It would be so much sweeter watching his hated enemy realize Eobard's betrayal.

He'd have to keep a closer eye on the developments out of Starling City from now on, of course. "Gideon, show me results for the Black Canary."

"Of course, Dr. Wells."

His eyes scanned the photos, the articles. Black Canary joining the fight alongside Green Arrow, Hawkgirl and the Flash along with countless heroes. The Birds of Prey teaming up with Wildcat to stop an illegal fight club. Dinah Laurel Lance-Queen running down the courthouse steps with her new husband.

"Until we meet again for the first time, Black Canary," Eobard murmured under his breath. "End Daily Log."


End file.
